


Bedtime Stories

by Paraph



Series: Bedtimes and Beginnings [1]
Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Kid Loki, Kid Thor, Original Character(s), Snippets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-20
Updated: 2012-10-20
Packaged: 2017-11-16 16:30:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/541536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paraph/pseuds/Paraph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every night the nurse spins the two young princes a different tale. Legends of brave warriors and beautiful maidens, of victorious battles that they will replay in their dreaming minds, taking for themselves the place of the hero. But, not this night. This night is a night for lessons that cannot be absorbed in the joyous light of day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bedtime Stories

 

It's a perfect day, the kind of day that the mind recalls through the rose tinted haze of memories passed, when conjuring recollections of summer. The air lies still, sweet with the perfume of newly blossoming fruit trees and that strange, undefinable scent that is light and warmth. It is summer personified. The kind of day, when even the most disheartened of cynics hear the welcoming call of nature and stretch in whispering meadows and rejoice at the act of living.

It's that kind of day, when all things seem possible.

Perhaps  _that_ is why the two little boys run so long and tirelessly, far beyond the palace walls- and into the dark woods where even battle hardened warriors tread with caution, wary of the unknown. Perhaps that is why the elder, normally so intent to lead, is so magnanimous this day; content to follow the younger's wondering path, under dark canopies and over moss heavy ground, where sharp eyed birds squawk with reproach at their passing.

They are deep in the wood's shadowy heart when their harried nurse finally catches them up and pulls them, shame faced and whining, back into the land of light and safety- away from the gazes of the old, evil things that lurk concealed and waiting beneath the trees.

She could scold them, could reprimand them for their reckless flight, but she has seen the passage of many seasons, this woman; has chased the patter of countless tiny feet. She is wise to children's ways. Even when they are seemingly so un-childlike, as with this younger boy- little Loki, youngest son of Odin's house. Little Loki with his sharp tongue and too knowing eyes, who steals spell books from his father's library and tears the wings from bees for the sheer delight of seeing what they will do.

So she takes their small hands in her's and guides them back home, tongue locked silent behind teeth and lips that are pressed thin in anger.

They will learn their lesson, both of them. She must simply wait. So she waits- waits until the stage is set. Waits until darkness overtakes the glittering palace and the windows have been shuttered against the chill, damp air that has come in the day's wake and shadows dance across the floor in the hearth fire's light.

"Tell us a story," golden young Thor demands then, as she knew he would, his voice an unsure, infantile imitation of his king-father's.

Oh yes, now is the moment and she presses her advantage with the timing of a demagogue.

Every night she spins these children a different tale. Legends of brave warriors and beautiful maidens, of victorious battles that they will replay in their dreaming minds, taking for themselves the place of the hero.  _But_ , not this night. This night is a night for lessons that cannot be absorbed in the joyous light of day. Lessons for little boys who lead their brothers into peril and those who witlessly follow, never imagining that danger and death are waiting just out of sight.

Tonight, she draws her skirts together about her legs and perching at the corner of their bed, spins a different kind of tale.

"What to tell?" she wonders aloud, pretending to consider the question as the boys watch expectantly from under their furs. "Two little princes, so keen for adventure, what I wonder would be of interest? A tale of witches, perhaps? Of trolls? Of the frost giants with their blood red eyes?"

"Frost giants!" the elder prince scoffs, "witless, gutless creatures."

But the younger doesn't share his sibling's boldness and ah, he chooses for her, for she cannot miss how he presses to his bother's side and draws the linens higher to hide himself.

"They are not so frightening," Thor thunders on, with the surety of one who has never know true fear. "When I am grown, I will destroy every last one of them. Vile monster they are."

"You would not think them so easily dismissed were you to meet one," the nurse replies, smoothing a palm over her skirts and voice still light with the nonchalance of the story teller she begins to weave them her tale- stories of little boys who wander too far and too carelessly and of the blue skinned monsters who lurk in darkness to snatch them.

These monsters do not simply kill their hapless prey, she tells them.  _No_ , nothing so merciful as that. For monsters they truly are. Monsters, who clave open breasts and rip out still beating hearts to feast upon.

And when her story is at its end, she straitens the bed things and wishes them sweet dreams, sure that their imaginations will teach them a lesson she cannot. Yes, she knows children's hearts. And dream they do, especially the little trickster, who thrashes and whines all the long night, haunted by clawed blue hands that reach for him to tear the rosy pink flesh from his bones and of eyes so dark and red that they might be blood congealed into two matching orbs. Eyes that he knows the shape and make of with a certainty he shouldn't rightly possess.


End file.
